Mark My Words

Mark the Evangelist, by Aleksandr Sytov

Pastor’s Epistle—December 2026

The Western Church’s year begins in Advent, and for those liturgical traditions that follow a three-year lectionary—Lutheran, Catholic, Anglican, &c—that means we’ve said goodbye to the Holy Gospel According to St Matthew, and turn now for our Sunday readings to the Holy Gospel According to St Mark.

Mark’s is the shortest and the eldest of our Gospels, the only one intended for oral proclamation all at once. You can memorize the whole thing and recite it in about an hour and a half; some folks back at my seminary did. Tradition ascribes authorship to John Mark, a Christian disciple mentioned several times in the Acts of the Apostles.

John Mark was cousin to Barnabas, travelling companion to Paul, and—according to the early Church Fathers—amnuensis to Peter, who called him “my son.” Mark’s Gospel has a breathless, urgent tone; he repeats “and immediately” as his favorite conjunction. He reports no Nativity story, jumping in media res, with the adult Jesus’ Baptism at the hands of John the Baptist.

He also cuts the tale shorter than we’re used to, ending with women fleeing from Jesus’ empty tomb: “and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” Scholars debate whether this cliffhanger was the author’s original intention, or perhaps an older ending has been lost. Later scribes added not one but two different epilogues, so as to include the Risen Jesus’ appearances.

Mark’s Gospel served as the primary source for its fellow synoptics, the Gospels of Matthew and of Luke. Indeed, more than 90% of Markan material may be found in those two other accounts; very little remains unique to the Gospel of Mark. He does tend to include Aramaic terminology—the language in which Jesus would have taught—along with translations for his Greek-speaking audience. Mark, mind you, was his Roman name; John was his Hebrew.

All in all, Mark’s rough-and-ready Gospel lacks the spit-and-polish of, say, Luke’s more refined and erudite chronicle. But because of that, his seriousness, his earnestness, fairly leaps off the page. This is a man who sounds as though he’s just seen the Resurrection with his own two eyes, and is now falling over himself to express that which his mind has yet fully to process.

But don’t take my word for it. We’re about to spend a year reading the Markan narrative together. Take note of what makes it unique. See what Matthew and Luke chose to include, or to change, or to ignore, and why they might have done so. We have four written witnesses to Jesus’ life, death, and Resurrection. And of these four, John Mark’s is the first.

In Jesus. Amen.